


Sabotage

by ClockworkCourier



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Comedy of Errors, Fluff and Humor, M/M, Marriage Proposal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-18
Updated: 2016-08-18
Packaged: 2018-08-09 14:32:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7805521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ClockworkCourier/pseuds/ClockworkCourier
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Proposing to Jack Morrison is literally the hardest thing in the world to do. </p><p>Not like, emotionally. More like the entire world doesn't want it to happen and it's going to throw everything it has at Gabriel Reyes to keep it from happening.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sabotage

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Hawkefeathers](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hawkefeathers/gifts).



> Birthday fic for the lovely Hawkefeathers/visor76! Yaaaay happy birthday, friendo! <333 Have some fluffiness as best as I could do it. 
> 
> Title is from Sabotage by the Beastie Boys. Because yes.

Gabriel Reyes knew he was royally screwed from the first moment that he wondered if Reyes-Morrison sounded better than Morrison-Reyes. And of course, because it was _him_ , the thought occurred to him in the midst of an actual life-or-death battle with a terrorist cell in the icy backwoods of Siberia, with ammunition whizzing by his head and the tundra practically exploding around him. Gabe was huddled up behind an overturned train car, his shotgun a familiar, cold weight in his hands, the smell of gunpowder thick and sulfurous in the air, and his mind rebelling from its usual order of tactics and strategy to instead tell him that--

_Reyes-Morrison does have a nice ring to it, and he owes you anyway because of that bullshit promotion. So, honestly, the least he could do is agree to have your name fir--_

A shell exploded about fifteen yards from where he was crouched, effectively jerking him out of his thoughts. He cringed and counted to ten before rolling out of his position and in the line of fire, where he took out one terrorist with a shot right between the eyes. McCree cheered loudly over the comm, “ _Nice one, jefe!_ ” before Gabe heard the distinct chatter-like report of a six-shooter in the distance, probably mowing another poor bastard down.  
  
Gabe should have congratulated himself, or congratulated McCree, but really, he was internally kicking himself.  
  
_You’re so fucked, Reyes._  
  
\---  
  
Double-fucked. _Majorly_ double-fucked.  
  
Gabe grimaced down at the display case, with its long rows of diamond necklaces and a rainbow of sapphires, amethysts, emeralds, and rubies arranged in delicate curls of platinum or gold. The woman at the counter was dressed like a politician, with a smart business suit and hair set in perfect curled waves with not so much as a strand out of place. She smiled like a politician, too. Her smile was too white, too perfect, and just a hair too fake. “We have a fine selection of engagement rings,” she said in a gentle Swiss lilt, her manicured nails lightly tapping against the glass. “And of course, we do custom orders if you have a design in mind.”  
  
He didn’t. And he didn’t know shit about jewelry aside from the fact that people paid stupid amounts of money for some manipulated piece of metal studded in multicolored rocks. Just seeing the displays of necklaces, rings, bracelets, brooches, pins, and earrings made him feel a little nauseous, knowing that there was a good reason why the prices weren’t openly displayed. So he didn’t say anything, instead opting to keep staring hard, and frowning harder.  
  
The woman didn’t falter, of course. With how much money probably went through her hands on any given day, she wouldn’t have. She just kept smiling with her high wattage smile and tapped the glass again. “Does the lady have any particular interests?”  
  
“It’s a guy,” Gabe sharply corrected.  
  
She didn’t miss a beat. “My apologies,” she said smoothly. “Does this _gentleman_ have any particular interests?” She said _gentleman_ like she was speaking about an aristocrat. If her voice could have been visualized, it would have been elegant, flowing calligraphy with huge flourishes at the end of every word. Gabe kind of wanted to swear at her and maybe throw a mannequin hand at her coif.  
  
“I don’t know. I thought engagement rings were supposed to be simple,” he replied gruffly, shoving his hands into the front pocket of his hoodie. His eyes went to a ring so densely encrusted in diamonds that it looked like some kind of sparkling fungal overgrowth. “Don’t you have like, just a regular band or something? I don’t know, titanium or whatever?”  
  
Gabe was well-trained at picking up nonverbal signals and reading facial expressions. All those years of intense interrogations for some of the most notorious criminals and spies in the world made him overqualified for that particular job. He saw the barest nasolabial crease form at the edge of the woman’s mouth, like she was picking up a particularly unpleasant stench. “I suppose we do,” she said slowly, _carefully_. “But engagement rings can be just as much of a resplendent affair as the actual wedding ring.”  
  
He rolled his eyes and breathed out through his nose. “Okay, so are we talking like an engraved band?”  
  
“We could certainly do that.”  
  
The woman excused herself for a moment to go to one of the back rooms, leaving Gabe standing in front of the case, under the too-bright lights like a lizard under a heat lamp. He kept frowning, staring accusingly down at an alexandrite necklace. Because seriously, what the fuck had happened in his life that would result in him buying a fucking _engagement ring_ for Jack Morrison? And when was he even going to give it to him? It’s not like he could have just strolled into his office, threw the box down in front of him, and said, “Okay, you and me.” Well, he could have, but Gabe wasn’t going to just throw eons worth of tradition under the bus. He wanted to, certainly, but there were some very vivid memories stored in his head of his mother tugging at his cheek and telling him that she had been planning his wedding since he was six years old. The way she talked about it made it sound like the Pope himself would attend if she had her way.  
  
Gabriel Reyes was not going to disappoint his mother.  
  
The woman returned with a tray of metal bands mounted in white cushioning. It looked like rings that hadn’t yet been shaped into anything, except for a few with the barest etchings on the edges. Gabe glanced over them, leaning away slightly like the tray was liable to blow up in his face. Then, one finally caught his eye. He reached down and picked it up, pinching it between his thumb and forefinger and rotating it so that its burnished edges reflected the tiniest sliver of light.  
  
“This one,” he said. His heart gave an answering double-beat.  
  
If there was such a thing as triple-fucked, Gabe was the victim of it.  
  
\---  
  
_Location, location, location._  
  
It was a rhythmic, singsong mantra that had been playing in his head for weeks. He hadn’t told anyone that he was planning to propose, although as time wore on, he began wondering if he should have at least enlisted Ana or someone that he could trust to keep it a secret. Instead, he just sat in his office chair, scrolling down an endless list of restaurant recommendations in and around Zurich. Five star, four star, courtyards, haute cuisine, brunch, scenic overlook, and on and on and on. Gabe thought his eyes were going to shrivel up and fall right out of his head from the sheer amount of time he had spent looking and weighing his options.  
  
So if it wasn’t a restaurant, then what? He had looked at ski lodges and resorts, figuring that maybe he could offer to take Jack on a quiet, impromptu sojourn disguised as a vacation. But when was the last time he had taken Jack anywhere that hadn’t been a mission? Jack would get suspicious, and Gabe’s cover would probably be blown. Out of habit, he had started thinking of the proposal like a mission, and like hell he was going to compromise it by doing something out of his typical observed routine.  
  
That really narrowed down his options. He was going to have to get tactical in order for it to work.  
  
If it was going to be at a restaurant, he had to have a damn good reason for both him and Jack to be there alone. The vacation idea was temporarily ruled out unless he came up with a better reason for both of them going. And _then_ he started looking at options of places outside of Switzerland, like some swanky, high-end place in Berlin or Paris or Rome. He could pass that trip off as something Overwatch-sanctioned, or ordered by the UN. But then Jack could fact-check that and would find holes in it.  
  
A park, then. Belvoir Park was a particularly beautiful locale in Zurich. It was certainly romantic, with manicured fairytale gardens and picture-perfect architecture. Yes, he’d have to make sure it was secure, but he could pass off a visit as a Blackwatch security check. He could invite Jack under the guise of allowing Jack to see the security procedures newly put in place since the last year. Publically, it would look good, and there was no reason for Gabe not to actually do the job in question. And then, it would be a matter of pulling Jack aside to one of the walkways wreathed in bearded irises, going down on one knee, and doing that whole... _thing._  
  
The thought made him shiver a little.  
  
\---  
  
Seriously, how the hell was Gabe supposed to know that the day he chose to propose to Jack was the same day that Talon would magically decide that Belvoir Park was _the_ place to do a stakeout of the headquarters?  
  
Jack had agreed so readily, too, saying that it was the perfect opportunity to see the new security procedures in action after they had spent weeks drafting them. Gabe had been fiddling with the box all morning, staring at his reflection in the mirror and practicing exactly what he would say. He just about had it down, and had started distracting himself from the nerve-wracking part by making a mental map of the park and coming up with an itinerary in his head. _Twelve-hundred hours, finish up at the banquet hall and move down to the pond. Twelve-twenty, move to bearded iris garden. Go into heart-wrenching speech and try to get him to cry. Fountain in pond scheduled to turn on for romantic scenery. Twelve-thirty, begin Operation: One Knee. Estimate twelve-thirty-two, kiss him right on his fucking perfect face and move on to planning stage for Operation: Rice Thrower._  
  
It was one of the most perfectly-crafted missions he had ever devised, down to the minute. And of course, it all went to shit.  
  
He knew something was wrong when they first stepped in. The air felt just a little _too_ still, the normal sounds of the park muted. Gabe could see Jack tense up as well, his hand going to the pistol he always kept on his hip.  
  
“Something’s up,” Jack muttered, nodding towards the Edwardian-style house grandly presiding over the whole park.  
  
Gabe had his shotguns at the ready, and the second he heard the telltale shift of a boot on concrete, he knew exactly what had happened. Gabe yanked on Jack’s arm hard enough to pull a normal man’s shoulder out of alignment, pulling him behind a tree while part of the bark shattered in an explosion of sawdust.  
  
“Talon,” Jack grunted, checking the chamber of his pistol.  
  
Gabe turned just enough to see a row of black shapes on the roof of the house and a few at the edges of the main doorway. He growled in frustration, feeling the weight and sharp corners of the box against his leg. He heard the slight tinny beep of his watch, telling him that it was a quarter to twelve. He had fifteen minutes to take the Talon operatives out and put his plan into motion. He had done more in less in the past, but then again, his impending engagement had never been the mission before.  
  
That in mind, Gabe turned the corner and blasted four operatives off the roof. Then he frowned when four new shapes replaced them.  
  
“Seriously?” he groaned, ducking back behind the tree right as Jack took his place. Gabe counted four shots from the pistol before Jack returned.  
  
“You wouldn’t happen to have an EMP grenade on you, by any chance?” Jack asked, reloading at super soldier speed.  
  
“Yeah, ‘cause I make a habit of carrying them around,” Gabe replied, a little sharper than he would have liked. But then he remembered the weight on his left hip-- “Oh. Wait. Yeah, I do.”  
  
The air was split by the high whine of the grenade as it sailed through the air, neatly landing in the doorframe like a ball through a goalpost. All Gabe could register was a series of scattered shouts before it detonated with a thunderous bass-like sound. By that point, he could also hear sirens in the distance, and he groaned again. “Really? They couldn’t wait a second?”  
  
“For what?”  
  
“For-- Ah, forget it.” Gabe checked his shotguns again before he ran out from behind the tree, barreling directly towards the smoking remainder of the door. Fortunately, Overwatch would pay for repairs, but not before Gabe added to the issue by smashing one poor Talon bastard’s head right into it, shattering more of the wood. He shot another one almost point-blank in the chest, and got another one in the knee, causing him to hit the floor. With that one, Gabe grabbed him by the helmet and bared his teeth at the guy, who was about ten seconds away from pissing himself.  
  
“For fuck’s sake, you couldn’t wait a day to pull this shit?” Gabe snarled, smacking the kid’s head off the floor for good measure. As if on cue, Gabe’s watch happily chirped again, reminding him that it was noon.  “I am supposed to be taking the goddamn love of my life down to the pond right about now, but because of you annoying bastards, I’m--” _Smack._ “Stuck.” _Smack._ “Here.” _Smack._ “Dealing with your sorry asses instead of getting engaged!” There was a dent in the floor by that point, and the Talon operative was reduced to a groaning, bloody mess. Gabe snarled again and dropped him to the floor before wiping his bloody hands on his fatigues. “Take an aspirin, cabrón.”  
  
Overwatch eventually had to come and intervene, effectively ruining that particular plan. While they finished rounding up the Talon operatives and surveying the damage, Gabe sullenly watched from the doorframe as the fountain burst to life at twelve-twenty.  
  
\---  
  
He had a week of interrogations to get through before Gabe could make any further plans. Although it wasn’t necessarily in Blackwatch’s policy to do any rough interrogating, Gabe did take out his frustrations on his group, slamming his hands on the table and causing more than a few of them to flinch. He swore in a way that his mother would _strongly_ disapprove of, threatening and cursing and venting out every last frustration left in him. By the last day, he felt much better, although McCree had definitely caught on to him. The last operative was carted off to a maximum security prison, and Gabe watched the transport leave from the loading dock, leaning up against a crate of unexamined contraband munitions.  
  
McCree sidled up beside him, smiling a little _too_ mischievously for Gabe’s tastes. Immediately, he felt the irritation crawl back into him. “ _What?_ ” he snapped.  
  
“Just wondering what particular bug crawled up your ass and bit ya,” McCree said, holding his hands behind his back and grinning.  
  
“What the hell are you talking about?”  
  
“You just spent the last week scarin’ the ever loving hell out of a bunch of brainwashed kids like they personally pissed on every last one of your Cheerios, boss. Just wonderin’ if there’s somethin’ I gotta look out for, too.”  
  
Gabe was assailed with the twin sensations of either wanting to punch McCree into a nearby dumpster or personally feeding him his front teeth. He didn’t give in to either, figuring that was more paperwork and one less Blackwatch agent. That, and Jack probably wouldn’t approve. “Fuck off,” he grunted.  
  
“Awww, sounds like the boss has a personal problem. You write into Dear Abby for that?”  
  
“Fuck _off,_ and that’s an order.”  
  
McCree just grinned lazily and gave Gabe a half-hearted salute just under the rim of his ridiculous hat. “Acknowledged, jefe,” he drawled. He started a painfully slow walk back under the garage door of the dock, deliberately taking his dear sweet time.  
  
Gabe knew he was being baited. He knew it just as much as he knew that he should have told Ana about his plans, or that he probably should have called his mother more often. Unfortunately, McCree was the closest available person, and Gabe was quickly approaching the end of what was already an incredibly short rope.  
  
“I was gonna propose,” he grunted, crossing his arms over his chest and glaring at the chipped paint on the edge of the dumpster.  
  
McCree paused mid-step and turned his head. Gabe didn’t look at him but he knew that there was a stupid happy smile on his face. “Sorry? Come again?”  
  
“I said, I was gonna propose. And then Talon jumped in and fucked that right up.”  
  
There was a quick shuffling sound before McCree was right back at his side like the world’s most annoying lost puppy. Gabe could see the pure, unfiltered delight on the agent’s face, like Gabe had just told him he was getting a raise and a vacation. “You mean propose like, _engaged?_ Like, _marriage?_ ”  
  
“Yes, McCree,” Gabe growled, gritting his teeth a little too hard. “With the flowers and the rings and the doves and all that shit.”  
  
“Well, bless my stars and garters! Mr. Reyes, you _do_ have a soul!”  
  
Forget paperwork. Gabe was absolutely going to throw McCree into the dumpster. He made one move towards McCree, effectively sending the agent hustling back towards the door, hands raised in surrender but the sunny grin not fading in the least. “I bet you would look good in a dress,” was the last thing he managed to say before Gabe took off after him.  
  
\---  
  
Attempt numero dos.  
  
The restaurant approach, cushioned with the excuse that it was for investigative purposes as the owner of the restaurant was rumored to have connections with a crime family operating out of Moscow. The restaurant was perched precariously on the edge of a mountain near St. Moritz, looking down almost beatifically at the cool blue lake and the glittering array of lights in the town below. Gabe found that he would actually have been a little disappointed if the rumor ended up being true, because it was definitely one of the more beautiful restaurants he had ever been to.  
  
The evening he chose to go was one that cast St. Moritz in a deep cobalt blue, the moon rising silver over the dark lines of the Alps. Near Gabe’s table, a fire crackled in a large stone fireplace, glinting gold off the cutlery. As beautiful as the scenery was and as cozy as the space could be, Gabe’s eyes were on Jack the entire time.  
  
Jack had taken the time to dress up, wearing a white button-up with the sleeves stylishly rolled to his elbows, a black tie loosely knotted at his throat, and perfectly pressed black slacks. He had probably made an attempt to comb his hair down and gel it in place, but it went rogue as always. His eyes were bright, and for the first time in ages, his smile seemed to reach every corner of his face. He looked completely at ease, glancing over the menu while chatting about some inane thing like the Christmas presents he had already bought for Fareeha or how he never got to eat out with how busy he had been lately.  
  
Gabe just barely registered everything Jack was saying, a little too swept up in how model-gorgeous Jack looked, with the glow of the fire making his skin look all the warmer, drawing out the bridge of freckles over his nose and the deep cerulean of his eyes and--  
  
Gabe had it _bad._  
  
He could still feel the corners of the box against his leg, an ever-present weight for the last few weeks. Once more, he had practiced his speech, now altering it to fit the quiet atmosphere of the restaurant. He would reach across the table and take one of Jack’s hands, weaving their fingers together while he told him how much he wanted the two of them to have a future together beyond Overwatch and Blackwatch and all the political and militant horseshit they had dealt with for decades. The two of them weren’t getting any younger, Gabe would say, and even after all they had been through, he couldn’t imagine spending the rest of his life with anyone else. No one would be able to keep up with him the way Jack could, and know one knew him like Jack did.  
  
The part that he found the hardest to get out was the buzz phrase. The one sentence that made all the difference.  
  
_Come on Gabe, it’s not that hard,_ he had coached himself. _Four words, five syllables. Easy. Will. You. Marry. Me? See? It’s not hard to think it. You just have to say it._  
  
But with Jack looking like some golden Adonis crossed with a substitute teacher, it was much harder than Gabe thought. Suddenly, his mouth felt dry and his throat started constricting to the point that he had to clear his throat, drawing Jack’s attention and then brushing it away with a dismissive wave of his hand.  
  
_Oh, come on, Gabriel!_ his mind chastised him, and his inner voice sounded suspiciously like a combination of his mother and his sisters. _Not that hard. Te. Casarías. Conmigo. Just say it!_  
  
Nope. Not even in Spanish. Gabe took a fortifying drink of his water, but it fortified him about as much as a stack of ice cubes in the sun. Jack just kept going on, now talking about how Reinhardt had convinced him to go to Germany with him in December and go to a Christmas market. That thought summoned a very vivid vision of Jack in a warm, fuzzy sweater and a scarf, lit by glittering Christmas lights and gazing dreamily up at the falling snowflakes that would inevitably catch on his stupidly long, perfect eyelashes. Gabe felt his heart clench a little and he took a bigger drink.  
  
He needed a distraction. Something to draw away Jack’s attention just long enough for Gabe to pull the box out, look at the ring, and gather all his courage so that he could actually go through with it. All he needed was a few seconds, in the form of a waiter or--  
  
Or the owner of the restaurant, loping up to them with a _too_ friendly smile on his face. “Enjoying yourselves, gentlemen?” he asked, before pulling a pistol out of his suit coat and pressing the barrel up to Jack’s temple.  
  
And Gabe fucking _lost it._  
  
\---  
  
“Ana, I need your help.”  
  
Gabe could hear a shift of fabric over the phone and then a sigh. “ _Is it about you nearly tying a restaurant’s owners legs together with his own tongue? Because I heard all about that._ ”  
  
“He had it coming,” Gabe murmured. He glared down at the box like it had personally done him wrong. “But no, it’s not about-- Okay, it kind of _is,_ but not about the owner.”  
  
“ _Tell me._ ”  
  
“I want to propose to Jack.”  
  
A beat. Then two. Somewhere in the background, he could hear Fareeha singing along with a cartoon on TV. “ _What?_ ”  
  
“I’ve been trying to propose to Jack for a few weeks, but every single time, something comes up. First, it was Talon at the park, and then the thing at the restaurant in St. Moritz. I tried again when we got back to Zurich, but then he got called away because someone tried to blow up an old omnium in Sicily and now he’s going to be out there for two weeks.” Gabe paused, groaned, and then pinched the bridge of his nose. “I’m taking this as a sign. Maybe I should ditch the whole thing.”  
  
There was a long moment before Ana spoke again, and her tone was nothing but thoughtful. “ _You really want to do this?”_ she asked, but it didn’t sound demeaning or doubtful.  
  
“Yeah,” he said, and it felt good even to admit it out loud to someone other than McCree. “I actually... Hell, Ana, I _love_ the bastard. And if the universe would just suck it up and cooperate for a second, I would do something about it.”  
  
He could hear the smile in her voice. “ _That’s good to hear, Gabriel. Don’t throw it away if you know what’s good for you._ ”  
  
“Yeah, but how do I _do_ it? How do I get Talon and the rest of the world to stop its shit just long enough for me to actually go through the whole gauntlet?”  
  
“ _Why don’t you just talk to him? Nothing showy. Just go up to him in his office and ask._ ”  
  
“I’m not going to ask him to marry me like I’m talking to him over a water cooler, Ana.”  
  
He could almost _hear_ her roll her eyes. “ _You don’t have to. You can still get down on one knee and do your whole spiel. There’s nothing wrong with that._ ”  
  
“It doesn’t seem--”  
  
“ _Don’t say that it doesn’t seem right. If you want to take him out to dinner, do it somewhere where you know no one will try to kill you or him or blow the place up. If you want to take him somewhere special that isn’t a restaurant, do it where you don’t think there will be a security breach or an attack. Just go through with it._ ”  
  
“But he’ll figure it out,” Gabe replied, scratching at the back of his neck. Even then, he could already feel his resolve whittling down to nothing.  
  
“ _Then he figures it out. What’s the problem with that?_ ” She paused and sighed again, sounding every bit like an annoyed mother dealing with a whiny child. “ _He loves you as well, Gabriel. I don’t need a cybernetic eye and sniper training to see that. I think he’ll pretend to be surprised for your sake, even if he does know what you’re doing._ ”  
  
“I...” It was Gabe’s turn to sigh. He’d been doing an awful lot of that lately. Ana was right on every count, like always, and all of Gabe’s protests were practically null and void. “Thanks, Ana,” he ended up saying, unable to fight the grin starting to form at the corners of his mouth.  
  
“ _No problem, but I want to stand up in the wedding._ ”  
  
“And Fareeha’s flower girl. I got it.”  
  
“ _Good. Make me proud, Gabriel._ ”  
  
\---  
  
If by making Ana proud, she meant that Gabe proposed to Jack in the middle of a very different firefight, then Ana would be _glowing_ with pride.  
  
The destruction of the omnium in Sicily heralded the beginning of what ended up being a very stressful month for Overwatch and Blackwatch’s combined forces. A group had formed over the past year, entirely separate from Talon, dedicated to wiping out any trace of the Omnics and stealing the remaining technology in any way they could. They called themselves ECHO, and had made their presence known quickly and harshly. Gabe wasn’t particularly against the razing of any omnium, but there were plenty of hazards involved in that, including exposure to radiation. So he and Jack were thrown to all different ends of the globe, tracking down ECHO and stopping their attacks before they could happen.  
  
The climax of it all was the planned demolition of an omnium in the wilderness of Wyoming, where the plant had used the natural geothermal properties of the area as a secondary power source. ECHOs planned destruction was far more dangerous than it had been in places like Sicily or Greenland or Tunisia. The Wyoming omnium would not only involve the typical radiation issues, but also the chance of causing a geothermal explosion that would be devastating to the local area, and possibly beyond if it bled into the core of the Yellowstone caldera, only about fifty miles away.  
  
In short, there wasn’t any time for dinner dates or park promenades when the fate of more than just the western United States was hanging in the balance. Jack and Gabe had to work fast with their respective teams, trying to outrun ECHO how ever they could.  
  
The main showdown ended up being on the omnium’s property, with Blackwatch baring down on ECHOs holdout from the ground while Overwatch came in from above. Once the firefight had started and Gabe was made aware of ECHOs countdown for a pile of explosives in the omnium’s basement, he just managed to get a glimpse of the dark blue helicopter that Jack manned before McCree darted past him, six shooter blazing.  
  
It was a complete and utter clusterfuck, trying to command a focused attack on ECHOs human forces while also trying to figure out a way to keep the basement from exploding. The thing was, if the omnium blew up, so did everyone around it, and potentially a good chunk of that part of the world. Gabe didn’t really want to think about that being a result, especially when he had been so damn close to getting engaged. Apparently, the universe had planned one last big hurrah in respect to fucking him over.  
  
And then Jack hit the ground literally running once the helicopter was in range, the low hum of his pulse rifle cutting through the whine of EMP grenades and the sharp report of multiple guns going off all at once. Jack bolted to Gabe’s side where he was hidden behind a cracked boulder, both of their chests heaving. “Afternoon, Reyes,” Jack greeted, surprisingly chipper. “Lovely weather we’re having.”  
  
“Yep. Great day for a firefight.”  
  
_Now or never, Gabriel,_ his inner voice urged. It sounded more and more like his mother, and he shuddered at that.  
  
_Will you marry me? It’s so easy to say. Four words. Three in Spanish. Just make it happen._  
  
Now or never.  
  
Now or--  
  
Right fucking _now._  
  
He grabbed Jack by the collar of his commander coat, pulling Jack in hard and kissing him with regards to the world possibly ending in a matter of six minutes. Gabe took the opportunity of Jack’s shock to reach into his fatigues and pull out the velvet box. He thrust it against Jack’s chestplate while he leaned back, glaring hard at the commander.  
  
“Fucking marry me, Morrison!” he snarled.  
  
_Romantic. Great job._  
  
Jack blinked at him as something exploded somewhere to their left. Neither of them paid any attention. “I’m sorry. What?”  
  
“Yes or no, cabrón!” Gabe demanded. There was a cut at the corner of Jack’s mouth from Gabe’s teeth.  
  
“I-- Yes? _Yes!_ Absolutely yes!” Jack managed, wide-eyed and breathless. He nearly dropped the box trying to open it in the very precious commodity of time that they had, taking the burnished titanium band and slipping it on his ring finger. There were two etched rings running around the circumference, one showing a sliver of blue, the other a sliver of red. Jack glimpsed at it, grinning with a stray drop of blood running down his chin. “Holy shit, Reyes! You seriously just--”  
  
“Yeah!” Gabe shouted back over the cacophony of raw warfare. “We’re gonna get married if we actually make it out of here!”  
  
“Holy _shit!_ ” Jack repeated. Then, he turned his head and pressed his fingers over the comm in his ear, and Gabe couldn’t help but laugh almost hysterically at the sight of the ring on his finger. “This is Commander Morrison calling in a ground strike. Give them _everything_ we have!”  
  
Gabe raised both eyebrows.  
  
Jack lowered his hand, clenching his fist and grinning half-mad. “I’m getting married and like hell I’m letting these guys screw it up for me!” he shouted by way of an answer.  
  
Ana was going to be so proud of him.  
  
\---  
  
They made it. Narrowly.  
  
It was like something straight out of an action movie, with literal seconds on the countdown for the explosives, and ordnance blasting every which way, and Jack standing over it all with his mouth all bloodied up and his fist raised once they realized that they had made it, the sun glinting bright off the metal on his ring finger. He gave the order to collect those of ECHO who remained for interrogation, and to gather up the wounded and dead for medical attention or burial. And then, once all the necessary orders were given, Jack dragged himself back to Gabe’s side near the closest helicopter, all covered in dirt and dust and blood and smelling like the ozone of the pulse munitions and the saltpeter of gunpowder. And right then, Gabe had never been more in love.  
  
Jack kissed him in front of everyone, pulling him painfully close and biting down on his bottom lip until Gabe could taste copper. He grinned against Jack and laughed when they parted.  
  
“So,” Gabe said, just barely catching the sight of a maniacally-grinning McCree in his periphery. “Reyes-Morrison, yeah?”  
  
“Why not Morrison-Reyes?”  
  
“Because you owe me one, boy scout,” Gabe replied, not bothering to wipe away the blood that was now trailing down his face. It itched, and he let it. It felt better than anything he had ever felt before.  
  
Jack watched him, and then smiled wide so Gabe could see the blood on his teeth and the freckles under the dirt. “Reyes-Morrison it is.”

**Author's Note:**

> [Tumblr](http://radiojamming.tumblr.com)


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